Saving Bags

A long, long time ago in a decade far away...well, maybe the late 90's...I decided to keep track of how many lives of bags I was saving. I had been carrying a canvas tote with me at nearly all times and when I was specifically going grocery shopping I brought multiple bags. (I love totebags.)

In those days, it was often hard to convince people that I didn't want a bag, be it plastic or paper.  Occasionally I was told I HAD to take a bag if I wanted to take purchases out of the store. Sometimes a salesperson would keep putting an item in a bag "to protect" it no matter how much I protested.

A greater consciousness about saving the earth has made it easier to use alternate totes and leave the store bags in the store. However, sometimes it's still a work in progress. 

Yesterday the Trader Joe's cashier and I briefly discussed the song on the sound system.Then I produced my cloth bag and said I wanted to put other items in my backpack so I didn't have to take any of his bags. He agreed that saving bags was a good thing and remarked that he had a huge collection of plastic bags at home.

As he scanned items, he discovered that I had picked up a partially open package of chicken. I ran back to get another package which took me longer than expected while I dodged people and tried to get close to the chicken case. When I arrived back at the cash register I discovered that the cashier had bagged my ground beef, carton of eggs and bananas in separate produce bags (5 total). While I understand the impulse to bag meat - What part of "I don't want any of your bags" had he missed???

And saving those bags?...for three years (until we lost interest in tracking) my brother and I kept track of the bags we were saving by not taking the bags offered at the stores and shops. Each year we came in just under 600 bags for the two of us - 596, 599, 598. I don't know why we couldn't hit 600 but regardless, that's a lot of bag lives saved!